When I'm Gone
by Eve2006
Summary: Sam struggles to deal with Deans death. A look Sam between Season 3 and 4. Please read and review :


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural or its characters

**A/N 1:** So it has been awhile since I posted anything, almost a year now!!! I've been suffering from writers block and I have no beta so I really would appreciate if you could review and let me know what you think.

**A/N 2:** This story is set between season 3 and 4.

**A/N 3: **I think the start of Eminems song "When I'm gone" really does sum up the brothers relationship and it was rattling around in my head when I was writing this story.

**_"Have you ever loved someone so much, you'd give an arm for?_**

**_Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for?_**

**_When they know they're your heart,_**

**_And you know you are their armour_**

**_And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm 'em "_**

Lyrics by Eminem "When I'm gone"

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Dean Winchester had thought his brother many things during his lifetime. He had showed him how to tie his shoes, make Mac and Cheese, how to shave, talk to girls, how to drive (of course not in the Impala, in Deans own words "no one learns to drive in my baby"), but the one thing he didn't teach him, the one thing that turned out to be the most important thing Sam Winchester needed to know, was how to live in the world alone, without his big brother.

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Sam Winchester had tried, God knows he had tried to do what Dean had asked before he died, his brothers words ringing in his ears every second of everyday, "Remember what Dad thought you, remember what I thought you." But what Dean hadn't realised was that he hadn't thought him how to deal with the unbearable pain that had started in his gut moments after his death and continued to grow more and more each day.

He couldn't sleep, every time he closed his eyes he saw Dean either being mauled to death by the hell hounds, in hell been tortured or speaking directly to Sam asking why he had let him down. He couldn't eat; food had no taste, his stomach churning at the thoughts of it, never mind the taste of it.

Breathing, honest to god breathing was difficult. One minute he would be fine and the next minute he would not be able to catch his breath. It would sneak up on him from seemingly nowhere, but Sam knew that wasn't true, there was no such place as nowhere now, there was just this place, this place that Sam was all alone and his brother, the one who had protected him, cared for and loved him no longer existed.

Sam couldn't really tell which was worse, being stuck here without his brother or the thoughts of his brother being tortured in hell. He just couldn't understand how it had come to this, how could someone as good as his brother, who had saved countless of lives could be in hell. Crossroads deal or no crossroads deal, how could a good, honourable man like his brother end up in place that was supposed to be reserved for the worlds most evil?

Sam was certainly angry. Angry at himself for not being able to stop the deal from coming due, angry at Dean for being stupid enough to make the deal in the first place and angry with God for allowing this to happen. But most of all, most of all he was completely and utterly devastated.

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"Time is a great healer Sammy, and I know it doesn't seem like it now but you will get through this, I promise you." Dean had told him that when Jess died. At the time he hadn't really believed him. The pain of loosing Jess ate away at him, but he had come through it and his brother had been right. But looking back at it now, he realised it was not just the time that had helped him heal, but the person he had spent it with.

It had always been Sam and Dean, John Winchesters sons. Even at Stanford, he had always felt it. Sure he and Dean hadn't talk, his departure from the Winchester fold still too raw for any of them to deal with, but Sam knew, he knew deep down if he needed his brother then Dean would be there in a heartbeat. So the question Sam kept asking himself every minute of everyday was " How do you put yourself back together when the part of you that gives you your strength, your courage and your support is lost forever?"

He had stayed with Bobby as long as he could, but he just couldn't watch him suffer through the pain of Dean's death while struggling with his own. Bobby had always looked out for them, ever since they were kids and while Sam knew that Bobby cared for him, he also knew that he thought of Dean as a son. Staying at Bobby's only convinced him more and more that Dean never should have made the deal and that everyone would have been better off if he had just stayed dead.

Then the day came when the anger finally overtook the immense sadness in his soul and Sam knew that he couldn't stay with Bobby any longer, he needed to get his brother back.

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He tried everything that he could think of; he went back to the site of their greatest victory, where their Dads long journey for revenge was put to rest with "Yellow Eyes" finally paying for killing their mother and Jessica. The gate would not open and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get through it. Crossroad demons laughed at him every time he tried to make a deal and Sam was at a loss about what to do.

"Remember what I thought you," so Sam did, he started drinking to try to numb the pain, knowing in his heart that that was definitely not what his brother had meant.

All he could think about was Lilith, she had killed his brother, murdered him in cold blood and she was just out there, continuing on as if nothing had happened, as if Sam Winchesters world hadn't just crumbled.

He knew it was a suicide mission but he just couldn't bring himself to care. A life without Dean was a life that he didn't want. He hated himself for what he had become and knew that his brother would have been livid about what he was doing but then again he wasn't here now, was he?

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Ruby saved his life, promised him the sun, the moon and the stars but most of all she promised him Lilith. He had felt so completely alone, so lost that he didn't even think twice about it. Didn't remember Dean telling him before he died that she was not the answer.

The shock of seeing Dean standing in front of him, Bobby telling him that it was really him, took his breath away. Sam had finally got back the part of him that he had been missing for months and for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, he felt alive, present in the world. But as the initial shock wore off, Sam knew that he could not leave himself that vulnerable again. He chose to keep part of himself closed off in order to protect himself, unwilling to truly let Dean in because as long a Lilith was alive she was always a threat to Dean, a threat that needed to be ended.

**The End**

**Thanks for taking the time to read – please please please review**


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